Kingdom Above the Cloud

by Maggie Platt

  “What did they tell you?” Tovi asked, entranced by this story. Adwin had always been a central part of her village’s traditions. It was remarkable to hear of someone who would go to such measures just to learn about him.

  “Why don’t you come with me tonight? I’ll tell Calix that I’m taking you out to teach you more about Pleasure and that you’re sleeping it off at my house afterward. He’ll believe me.”

  “All right,” Tovi said, not sure what that meant or what she was getting into.

  “And speaking of cover stories, you will have to pretend like this conversation never happened. I was supposed to teach you the power that your body has to manipulate men, so that you can get anything you want. You use their pleasure against them. I doubt they will ask too many questions, but if you feel caught, just say something like, ‘I had no idea the world worked that way, but I see it now.’ That will be enough to get you by.”

  Prince Jairus abruptly appeared in their small clearing. He furiously commanded, “Go back to the palace, Tovi. My grandfather is waiting for you.” Tovi jumped up without hesitation, intimidated by his demeanor. She was only a few feet away when she heard him speak in a forced whisper. She stopped on the other side of the hedge to listen.

  “What have you been telling her?”

  “Jairus, she is from Adia! I had to find out . . . ”

  “Get your glove back on. Do you want him to throw you in jail? He will! He won’t care how much I beg to get you out. Get back up to the palace and come up with some good story about what you were doing out here for so long. He noticed that you came into the maze and stopped. You could have at least gone all the way to your house where he wouldn’t have seen you. It’s like you want to be caught. You’re just lucky he let me come get you. Just think if one of his servants had overheard you . . . ”

  CHAPTER 28

  Leeto moved swiftly through the forest, due north from the north-facing exit of the mines. It was time for him to check on his prisoner. Time to convince him to share his secrets.

  It had all gone as planned. Actually, it had been a bit too easy, and he congratulated himself frequently on the perfection of his scheme. He had been up in the tree watching the cave for about only four hours when Tali arrived. He had been prepared to be there for several days, but he did not complain that he would not have to spend a night out in the open.

  Darkness fell, and Tali’s fire crackled. Leeto longed to go near it to warm his freezing hands, but he had to wait. The night wore on, and the fire burned out. This was his cue.

  As quietly as he could, he climbed down the tree and entered the cave. Tali was asleep on his pile of hay, turned on his stomach so that Leeto saw the side of his face and the back of his head. Leeto picked up the large, flat rock that Tali used as a cutting board. This next moment was critical. He must not kill Tali. He needed him for later.

  He approached the sleeping man, raised the rock in the air, and let it fall just above Tali’s ear. Tali did not stir, and for a moment Leeto panicked that he had hit him too hard. But, a quick check of his pulse and breathing told Leeto that Tali was still very much alive.

  It was difficult work, but he was able to drag him to a nearby cave that he had previously scouted out. The cave had two chambers, and the innermost chamber could be blocked off with a round rock that rolled nicely in front of the entrance with little effort. When the chamber was closed in this way, someone unfamiliar with the cave could easily miss the back chamber.

  He had dragged Tali into this back chamber, setting him upright against the back wall. His head rolled horribly to one side. Leeto tied his wrists and his ankles in knots that would be impossible to untie on his own. He left a pile of apples and a pouch of water next to him. He would be able to use his hands, still tied together, to move these items to his mouth, and they should last him for several days.

  Just as Leeto was preparing to leave, the young man stirred. He looked with drowsy eyes at Leeto. “What happened?”

  “What has Adwin instructed you to do?” Leeto asked, ignoring Tali’s question.

  This seemed to bring Tali out of his fog. His eyes cleared, and he looked Leeto over with a shrewd expression. “Why would I tell you?” he retorted. Then he grimaced. Leeto suspected a throbbing headache was setting in.

  “Because I am the only soul who knows where you are. If you don’t tell me everything you know, I might forget to come back and feed you.”

  “So be it. My loyalty is to Adwin, and I won’t betray him, no matter what you offer or threaten.”

  “You are a fool, but that isn’t surprising,” Leeto snarled. “I’ll just leave you here for a few days. You may be more talkative after some solitary confinement. And, in case you are curious, Tovi is loving her new life on the mountain. She will be one of us before long, and there is nothing you can do to save her from it. I hope you think deeply on that as you sit here alone, hoping to be found before you starve to death.”

  Leeto could see his own nasty smile reflected in Tali’s angry eyes.

  Now, a few days later, Leeto was on his way back. Perhaps Tali would be ready to talk.

  Sunlight escaped through the canopy, turning everything in the woods to a paler, yellower version of itself. All was eerily silent. Even the birds and leaves were still. He did his best to not make a sound. Surely, he was alone. But one could never take too many precautions.

  His schemes were still taking shape in his mind. What exactly was the best use for Tali Tivka? What if he couldn’t get him to talk? Was he worth anything dead? If not, what form of torture could he use to pry Adwin’s instructions from him? He could always make up a story about Tovi. Maybe he would divulge his secrets if it meant saving Tovi. How ridiculously gallant that would be. The boy would have to be a fool to fall for that, but Leeto wouldn’t complain.

  His ears twitched as he picked up the distant sound of voices. He stopped and listened intently. Next he heard the thud of feet against the earth. Dozens—maybe hundreds—of feet drew nearer. He climbed the closest tree and perched on a low leafy branch. Moments later, Leeto sharply inhaled. He recognized the uniforms of the men coming down the path. What was King Damien’s army doing so far below the cloud?

  “Company One, split to the right. Company Two, split to the left. All others, march on. When you have searched your area, return to base. If we are unsuccessful tonight, we will begin again tomorrow. Remember, he has dark blue hair and brown eyes. He goes by Tali.”

  Leeto grew very still. King Damien had decided to act much quicker than Leeto had expected. It must have been a stroke of pure luck that he already had captured Tali and confined him in a hiding place. If he had waited, he may have lost his chance.

  After waiting for the army to leave the immediate area, Leeto scooted along the branch and shakily climbed down the tree while formulating an emergency plan. He would get Tali and smuggle him to the mountain. He could keep him locked somewhere safe while the armies continue looking in the woods below. He would feed King Damien false information, making him more and more desperate to find Tali. Then, when all seemed lost and the king was in a panic, Leeto could bring Tali out of hiding. That would surely earn him a reward. But how to get Tali through the mines and onto the mountain without being seen?

  As the skies darkened, Leeto arrived at the cave. He looked left and right several times, making sure none of the soldiers had followed him. He slipped inside and rolled away the back stone. He let out a guttural moan and yanked at his hair.

  The ropes were there, but Tali was gone.

  CHAPTER 29

  The “surprises” King Damien had promised Tovi earlier that day were now nothing but a memory, but she feared she would never get the images out of her head. They had been horrifying—a collection of sculptures and paintings he kept in a gallery in the palace. Each one depicted human bodies hideously contorted until they were almost unrecognizable. There had been so much anger in their eyes, pain and fear in their faces. Yet Damien described them as beautiful
expressions of love and pleasure.

  After dinner, Tovi and Xanthe made their way to the Bottom Rung clothed in less conspicuous dresses and covered in dark cloaks. They passed few people except near the pubs overflowing with nighttime revelers.

  They stopped outside of a building in sad need of repair. It was seven stories high with some of its windows broken out. A green wooden sign advertising tailoring swung back and forth in the slight breeze, causing an eerie scraping noise. There were sagging iron balconies stretching around the whole building on the second and fourth floors, and a man with green hair leaned against the upper railing, watching them in the street below. Xanthe lifted her gloved hand in a strange salute, like she was drawing half of a heart in the air. The man called something over his shoulder that Tovi couldn’t hear.

  A moment later a woman with hot pink hair and chubby cheeks answered the door. The woman’s hands were bare, and when they were all inside, she held her palm face up. “Greetings in the name of Adwin,” she said with a toothy smile.

  Xanthe wasted no time. “Lyra, this is Tovi. She’s from Adia.”

  Lyra’s large teal eyes grew even bigger as she grasped Tovi’s hands. “Adia?” she asked breathlessly. “Are you really?”

  Tovi nodded, and Lyra threw her arms around her guest. “Wait ‘til the others meet you!” Tovi followed Lyra through a maze of rooms and up several flights of stairs, and finally they came to a dark room lit by a few flickering candle stubs. Tovi could just make out a circle of nearly a dozen people sitting on the floor passing what looked to be a loaf of bread and a jar of honey.

  “We have a special guest tonight,” Lyra announced excitedly, one arm wrapped around Tovi’s shoulders. “This is Tovi. She is from Adia!”

  Even Xanthe couldn’t help smiling at the uproar caused by this news. Tovi was hugged, kissed, and swung around the room as the clandestine rebels of the Hidden Heart laughed, exclaimed, and danced. When the hubbub finally died down, Tovi was invited to sit, and everyone returned to their place on the floor.

  They all had unkempt hair of varying hues and patterns. The women had plain, kind faces, lacking makeup and smudged with the grime of their labor. The men had scraggly beards and rough looking hands. Their gray clothes were threadbare, but there was evidence of careful mending and patching. Even the disguises worn by Xanthe and Tovi were too extravagant to blend in with this group, but no one seemed to mind.

  “Where is Meira?” Xanthe asked, glancing around the circle. The group’s joy deflated into silence.

  “We haven’t seen her since last night,” Lyra answered. “She told us goodbye and that she hoped to see us again soon. Said she was doing something for Adwin and couldn’t tell us more. I think—”

  “Tovi, you are very welcome here,” the man with green hair greeted from the other side of the circle, cutting off Lyra’s story with a kind but firm tone. He looked strangely familiar to Tovi. “We’ll each introduce ourselves, and then we’d love to hear about you. My name is Hesper. I am a hunter, and Lyra is my wife.”

  “My name is Zephne,” said the girl sitting next to Hesper. Tovi guessed that she couldn’t be more than sixteen. If her hair had been clean, it would have been as red as an apple. She had eyes that reminded Tovi of a clear night sky. “I work in the kitchen in Calix and BiBi’s home.”

  Startled, Tovi said, “But that’s where I live.”

  “I know,” Zephne responded kindly. “Most people don’t notice us. Please don’t feel bad.” She smiled, and Tovi knew she meant what she said.

  “Sorry I am late!” came a voice from the dim doorway, and goosebumps ran up Tovi’s arms as she recognized bright orange hair and piercing yellow eyes. It was Leeto. How could he be a part of this group?

  Then he stepped closer to the candlelight, and she realized it was not Leeto; it was someone who looked quite a bit like him but was much taller and broader. His nose wasn’t quite as pointy, and there was kindness in his face.

  “Who’s this?” he asked, inclining his head toward Tovi.

  “This is Tovi! She’s from Adia!” Lyra squealed once more. “This is Thad. He’s Leeto and Rhaxma’s eldest brother. But don’t worry . . . He’s not one of them.”

  Around the circle they continued. Tovi learned that Stavros was a lumberjack who had the opportunity to travel down the mountain and get closer to Adia. Missa tended the bees that provided them with the honey they were eating. Lux and Galen were both former artists who had been moved to cleaning the streets when King Damien’s interests changed from landscapes to portraits. Lyra was a seamstress, Illias was a hunter like Hesper, Magan and Rhea washed laundry in the palace by day and helped Lyra with her tailoring business in the evening, and Tovi recognized Ghita, one of Rhaxma’s servants. She clasped Tovi’s hands and ensured her that all was forgiven and that the horrible comparisons were not her fault.

  “What’s it like in Adia?” Ghita asked, her eyes shining with excitement.

  Tovi closed her eyes, picturing home. Her audience leaned in, intent on drinking in each word. “Everything is perfect and green and covered in flowers. The sky is always blue, the sun always warm, and the river always cool. It’s in a valley, surrounded by rolling hills and mountains in the distance—this mountain is one of them. Our homes are all built up in the tall trees, and there are bridges and ladders and rope swings. Sunrise and sunset are magnificent, and at night you can see the sparkling of a million stars.”

  The room had fallen completely silent. Lyra had tears in her eyes, which she unashamedly allowed to trickle down her cheeks.

  In a hushed whisper, Stavros asked, “Is it true that he made it all?”

  Magan interjected, “You know, Adwin. Did he really make the whole world like the legends say?”

  “Our legends say that, too, but I don’t know.”

  There was a strained silence as the group’s hopes were dashed. Xanthe took this opportunity to cut in. “I know all of you are going to be a little disappointed. I was, too, at first. But I think that if we tell her the stories we have heard, we can compare them to what she has been taught. Maybe we can all learn something tonight. I do so wish Meira was here, though. She’s the only one who says she’s met him.”

  The others nodded in agreement, and Galen asked Hesper to share his story.

  Hesper began, “When I was a boy, my mother taught me the importance of always wearing my gloves. She insisted that if I ever showed anyone the heart on my palm, I would be thrown in the dungeon for the rest of my life. She had the heart, too, and she warned me to hide it from my father who did not. Each day I put on my gloves and went to school, terrified of being found out.

  “One day when I was outside, I overheard my parents fighting. I snuck to the window to see what was going on. I watched my father rip the glove from my mother’s hand, and he roared in outrage. He dragged her straight to the palace. As promised, Damien threw my mother in prison.

  “Scared that Father would come for me next, I ran away and hid in the alleyways of the Bottom Rung. Another little boy—about my age—lived in the alley, too. He looked so much like me we could have been brothers. I told him my story, and he showed me a secret door into the dungeon of the palace. He said he used it all the time, and that I could use it to check on my mother. Sure enough, there was a little trap door, hidden from view on the backside of the palace. It led directly down into the chamber, and the guards always sit at the top of the stairs on the other end. I went as often as I could, making sure not to be seen by anyone but Mother. It was really pretty easy.

  “And that’s when Mother told me about him. A man came every day to visit the prisoners. At the time I found it hard to believe, but she told me it was Adwin from the old tales. One day she looked at me sadly and told me goodbye. She said she was going to take his offer to be free from this mountain. I was still very young and didn’t understand what she meant, and I didn’t even know the right questions to ask. All I know now is that she was gone the next day. The other prisoners said that
she left with the visitor.”

  “Wasn’t she locked in a cell?” Tovi asked.

  “Yes. Somehow, she got out. Nobody knows how they did it,” Hesper answered.

  “But what about when the guards realized she was gone?”

  Lyra reached over and patted Tovi’s hand as the candles around them flickered. “Strange things happen inside that jail. There have been many disappearances. Sometimes prisoners are beaten almost to death, and the next morning they have vanished from their cells. Others have grown old and sick, and they vanish as well. They were just gone. The guards must have thought that Hesper’s mother simply disappeared like the others.”

  “But surely you know,” Tovi said, looking around the circle of serious faces. “Don’t you know what happens when you die?”

  Hesper cocked his head to the side.

  Tovi continued, “Haven’t you ever seen someone fade and disappear?”

  She could feel the pulse quicken in the room. “Tovi,” Lyra said slowly, “When someone dies, they go into the eternal sleep. We bury their bodies outside of the city. No one just disappears.”

  CHAPTER 30

  “Very foolish of you, my boy. Very foolish indeed,” Damien said late in the night, sitting on his throne and surrounded by the candle-lit mural of the throne room. Calix stood before him, bravely taking the criticism. Despite Calix’s stoic face, the king knew how deeply this would cut through the young man, how much it would make his insides writhe with torment. “You lost your grip on your power. You let your anger toward the girl rule you, and you stepped away from wisdom and control. I gave you several days to come back to your senses, and you have not. You hardly speak to the girl, this Adian you brought to my mountain. You are better than this.”